Hamburg Süd Most Reliable in February

German liner company Hamburg Süd claimed the title of the most reliable carrier in February overtaking Maersk Line, having achieved an on-time performance of 86.2%, according to  SeaIntel Maritime Analysis.

This is the first time since February 2014 that Hamburg Süd is back on the top spot.

Danish carrier Maersk Line fell to the third place right after CSAV, with recorded 83.4% and 84.4% on-time performance respectively.

The CKYHE-members, COSCO, K Line and Yang Ming, were ranked at the bottom of the list, SeaIntel’s performance data show.

Based on the report, there was an almost 5 percent rise in global schedule reliability in February when compared to the previous month. On-time performance increased to 72.2% in February based on 9,931 vessel arrivals.

Liner service reliability fell to a record low in January as the effects of US West Coast congestion and the phasing-in of new alliance services took their toll.

The overall on-time performance for the three key East-West trades slumped to a disappointing 48.6% in January, down by 9.4 percentage points on December, which itself was one of the worst months of 2014, Drewry said.

“The improvement in global schedule reliability was clearly reflected among the Top20 carriers as 19 carriers recorded an increase in performance from January to February, with K Line being the only exception,” said Mr. Morten Berg Thomsen, shipping analyst at SeaIntel.

The reliability in the Transpacific EB trade lane (999 vessel arrivals) fell for the seventh consecutive month to 39.8% as a result of contract labour dispute that dragged along for nine months. In the Asia-North Europe trade lane (730 vessel arrivals) on-time performance increased to 73.2%,  while the Asia-Mediterranean trade’s (735 vessel arrivals) schedule reliability dropped to 63.4%, SeaIntel’s report found.